Saturday, January 25, 2003

What Was I Thinking?

I was chastised over in Atrios' comments section for not providing the correction on the "Bush revives confederate wreath practice" story on my blog. I did, of course, but that wouldn't have been enough in any case.

We left bloggers have been summarily marched to the wood shed for not adequately prostrating ourselves at the feet of George W Bush, indeed all Republicans, for spreading this shameful lie perpetrated by Time Magazine. It seems that we all owe George W. Bush an apology for ever believing such a thing and, even worse, for commenting on it.

I have given it a lot of thought and I agree that when someone attacks the character of someone in office based upon rumors, gossip and an unprofessional media, they owe it to that person to sincerely apologize when it turns out that such a thing is factually incorrect.

So, I apologize to George W. Bush for believing that he would revive a practice of sending a wreath to honor Robert E. Lee and posting a short comment about it. He did not do it and I hope that everyone realizes this and wipes the scurrilous accusation from their mind.

Now, I realize that this will cause a bandwidth crisis that could presage the end of the Internet as we know it, but there can be no logical consistency in requiring me to apologize for a post that linked to a Time article (to which I merely appended "Karl Rove makes Lee Atwater look like an amateur") without also requiring that Republicans and the press apologize for 8 solid years of character assassination and smears against the Clinton administration. (And I would say that the Gores deserve a mea culpa too, for the lies perpetrated against them by the press and the GOP during campaign 2000.)

I do look forward to Rush Limbaugh and all of his imitators, the entire Barbizon School of Dyed Blond Former Prosecutors, the editorial board of the New York Times and the Washington Post, William Safire, Maureen Dowd and every other columnist, Lucianne Goldberg and her coven of hideous bitches, AND EVERY OTHER REPUBLICAN WHO SAID THAT CLINTON WAS A CRIMINAL, to now prostrate themselves at the feet of Bill and Hillary for the despicable, cruel and outrageous lies they spread from the years 1992 through the present.

If I've got to apologize publicly for posting one inaccurate article, the entire Republican establishment will be spending the rest of its natural life trying to find the time to eat and sleep in between confessions of guilt.

Better get started, Kids. I suggest that you begin with the false allegations of holding up Air Force One with a haircut, go on to the bogus accusations of influencing Beverly Bassett on Madison Guarantee (and ALL Whitewater related smears for that matter.) Don't forget Vince Foster's much investigated "murder," through Safire's "scoop" that Hillary was about to be indicted and just keep going until you hit Clinton's illegitimate love child and the phony White House trashing story.

Once you are through with all that, then come back for the next round of apologies to Al Gore for the series of lies told about him during the campaign. (And you might want to send a couple over to your fellow Republican, John McCain, too.)

After all that, then maybe we can be considered even. I have apologized for the harm I did to George W. Bush by repeating an inaccurate story.